


Crimson Wisps and Steel Bullets

by borginburks



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Everyone Has Issues, I Don't Know Where This Is Going, Multi, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Tony Stark Has Issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-28
Updated: 2017-05-28
Packaged: 2018-09-25 16:14:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9828731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/borginburks/pseuds/borginburks
Summary: There’s a very specific hypocrisy that covers this whole thing, twisting and warping it until it becomes impossible to discern what is real anymore. Pretending like they have no responsibility to the world, to themselves, to at least try and rebuild what they’ve broken so badly.





	1. Nostalgia

\---

There is something appropriate about being back in Europe at this point in her life, a sense of rightness that seeps in to her bones and flows through her bloodstream, screaming of home and belonging. 

She is too smart to set foot in Moscow ever again. To them she is a traitor, and Russians have no sympathy for those who betray the motherland. No. She knows dearly the dangers that would be waiting for her the second she arrived there, but sitting in a small, nondescript café in Odessa, this is close enough.

There is something bigger coming, and everyone who is someone knows it. The world is buzzing with anticipation. Natasha knows she is on her ninth life; she has been given the benefit of the doubt too many times, has wasted more second-chances than she’s worth.

This is her, putting her affairs in order. And she supposes, in the process, searching for some sort of salvation. She knows the blood on her hands is much too thick to clean off in time, or perhaps ever, but Natasha is still human and there is nothing more familiar to humanity than searching for forgiveness with the end in sight. 

Looking around, she makes sure no one is watching, before pouring a steady stream of sugar into her black coffee. It is silly, perhaps, trying to protect her reputation from complete strangers, older natives of the city, those who would never recognize her behind her short, blonde hair or the preciseness of her makeup, masking her from identification. 

“Natalia” she hears from behind her, and standing where there was only empty space a second before is perhaps the only person who could catch her off-guard. “Old habits die hard, come all the way to Odessa for a disgustingly-sweet cup of coffee?” 

Of all the people who have come and gone, filtered through her life like ghosts from various parts of her existence, Yelena remains the same. She is a constant, perhaps the only constant. An immovable force, standing unchanged in face of anything that would transform someone else, someone weaker. If Natasha is like a chameleon, shifting and adapting to the whims of others, then Yelena is a snake, a rarity in their world for her ability to get where she needs without having to alter herself. 

Staring at her, Natasha is sure, Yelena remains unchanged. The same blond bob cut, shorter, slimmer figure. The same high cheekbones, smattering of freckles on her cheeks, manic look in her bright, blue eyes. And Natasha bets if she ever so slightly lowered the hem of her ivory silk blouse, she would find the same pink scar there, caused by a particularly eventful training session, a lifetime ago.

“We both know what I’m here for little spider. You know just as well as I that there is something bigger on the way.” The blonde smirks at the nickname, the most curious slant at the corner of her mouth, halfway between a grimace and a smile.  
Natasha can see the slightest fog glaze over her eyes, a second of silence, in remembrance for what could have been. It is over too soon.

“Nowhere is safe, Talia, not for us. We are the remnants of something that no longer exists, and we are not welcome in this new age.” She takes a breath, bites at her bottom lip, seeming to collect her thoughts. Natasha knows this tactic, knows every single one of her very few, very slight tells like the back of her hand. 

She does not want to ever face a force that scares someone like Yelena. 

“But - I have heard of something that could shake the world to its core, powers unheard of, capable of burning the strongest regimes to the ground.” The softest hitch in her breath, and then “There is something on its way. We have never known safety, but this will be it, this will make every moment of out pasts seem like heaven. Only purgatory lays ahead, Natalia.”

“The last time I saw you, you said you were looking for something, did you find it?” Natalia asks. 

She can picture that night clearly - she was on a recon mission for SHEILD, Clint had been with her, when she had spotted a shadow of her past, flittering about and flirting with every man in the room. Where Natasha preferred to blend in and make herself unknown, Yelena always had everyone’s eyes on her. There was something mesmerizing about her that drew people in like magnets - a touch of insanity in her, something raw, wild, and unhinged.

They hadn’t had much time to talk, only enough for exchange of a few words. But that was all that was necessary. 

“I can’t tell you much, only because I don’t know nearly that much myself, just enough to piece together a few parts of the puzzle.” Natasha brushed her hand against hers, small and frail on the wooden table. 

“I followed many different threads and they all led back to a man named Steven Strange. If there is anyone who knows anything about what is to come it is he. That is all I can give you.” There is a sense of certainty, a tired acceptance in her statement that is so unlike her it makes Natasha’s skin itch.

“But you-“ she grins and the fragility of her state of mind makes itself known, “have been holding out on me. What is this news of an old friend come back to visit that I hear?” Natasha cannot help but laugh at that, her mind supplying an image of a slender wisp of a girl body-slamming a man big as a mountain. The memory is slightly fuzzy, slightly warped as always. Seeming more like one of someone else than her own.  


“I saw him, but he looked at me and didn’t see anything.” She admits. Clearing the emotion from her voice she continues, “He doesn’t remember anything. After all, look at how we turned out, and he was there much longer than us.” 

Yelena sees right through her, “These things are rarely irreversible.” Giving Natasha’s hand a squeeze her features soften. “I must go, Talia, my time is running out I fear, but it doesn’t have to be the same for you. If life gives you the opportunity to be happy - take it.” She hates this, the injustice of it, but they both know the cruelty of the world, the pointlessness of trying to fight it.

The blonde stands, graceful in her every movement, always just a fraction of a better ballerina than her. Natasha is forced to revise her initial assessment of her, because in this moment she looks far too old, and far too vulnerable. 

She leans in to leave a quick peck on each of her cheeks, and then she is out of the door, gone without a single look back. Natasha knows goodbye when she sees it, can feel in her bones the finality of Yelena’s departure. For once, she lets the pain flow though, lets herself remember. 

She knows what she has to do, but for know she allows herself a few hours to mourn.

\---


	2. Wist

\---

The palace is deathly quiet at night.

A man slowly makes his away across the grand estate, the pads of his feet gently gliding across the vast marble floor. He is a shadow of a person, eyes darting around nervously, hands balled tightly at his sides. 

There is a small door in the chef’s room that leads outside. The man knows this; he has seen it in passing, glanced at it as he was led away.

The sounds of nature creep into the silence as he approaches the exit; the chirps of crickets and the soft rustle of the trees swaying in the breeze. He moves, hand grasping the doorknob, but it refuses to move. He is stuck. The outside smells of damp earth and aloe. It calls to him, a sanctuary from the thick tension that permeates the lavish rooms of the inside. 

He slides down to the floor, tries to rub the exhaustion from his tired eyes. 

Sleep evades him; it is a tempting escape from reality until it leads way to the exhausting nightmares he is no stranger to. Visions of a winding road surrounded by thick trees, and the pretty screams of a familiar woman, the sound her frail neck made as it was snapped by the untiring metal plates in his hand. 

The room seems to be getting smaller, trapping him in. He misses the brief taste tranquility he found in the sweet plums of Bucharest, back when he was no one, enjoying the small pleasures of life as a ghost. When he had no past to remember, no future to worry about. Or at least when he tried to pretend so. 

Now - it is an impossible feat. Every night he is reminded of the blood on his hands. A small child cradling a man with a hole in his head, the black dresses of women widowed too young, the tired betrayal in the dimmed eyes that he sees every time he closes his own. 

There’s a very specific hypocrisy that covers this whole thing, twisting and warping it until he can’t discern what is real anymore. 

On one hand there is the remainder of the Avenger’s, fugitives in a foreign land, spending their days wallowing in their own self-pity. Cursing the name of a man they had no problem taking everything from. 

On the other hand there is the rest of the world, entire nations of civilians with distrust in their hearts, carrying losses born of carelessness and arrogance, publicly condoning the actions of one Steve Rogers and his team. 

And then there’s Stark, pouring his time, money, and influence into fixing the mess they all started. 

It makes him want to rip his hair out. Pretending like they have no responsibility to the world, to themselves, to at least try and rebuild what they’ve broken so badly. 

But he is a ghost, a shadow. So he stays quiet.

\---


	3. Remembrance

\---

Steve is not certain about much these days. The thick Wakandan heat clouds his head, slows his thoughts, wraps around his limbs until he feels slow and sluggish. He never thought he would find himself yearning for the cold, in any capacity. But here he is, praying for a chilled breeze to make him feel alive. He knows he is not alone in feeling this way. The rest of the team grows more and more restless as the days go by.

It has become all too common to see Sam pacing the halls of the palace at night, to hear Clint or Scott, begging the royal staff to deliver letters to be sent back home, to see the desperation in their eyes as they come back undeliverable. To find Bucky to speak with the medical staff about cryo, with an alarming look of longing in his eyes.

T'Challa's home is magnificent, understated in a way that does little to betray it's true worth. Yet it is not home, and even a cage made of solid gold would do little to ease the restlessness brought about by confinement from the rest of the world.

They have become fugitives, criminals. Civilians all over the world curse their names, and Steve, for the life of him, does not know how it got to be like this. It is perhaps the most alarming thing about this new age, the ease and readiness with which society shuns people for their mistakes. No doubt, Steve has made his fair share of them, but his intentions were honorable, if nothing else.

The people of Wakanda tolerate them at best. Look at them with suspicion in their eyes and displeasure in the set of their mouths. Steve is not naive enough to believe his team is doing anything to alleviate their disapproval. Wanda, with her guarded eyes and the waves of barely contained rage that rolls of her, poisoning the air and thoughts of those around her. It is no coincidence that he feels the most anger towards Tony when standing close to her for too long.

Tony. The thought of him makes Steve's heart race, his palms sweat, and not in a good way.

The man has been all over the place recently; even the solitude of Wakanda can do little to diminish the buzz around Tony Stark that has set the world ablaze. He seems to be everywhere, doing everything. Single-handedly picking up the slack, trying to put everything together. But even Atlas had his limits, and every time Steve sees Tony, on the screen or in the paper, he is reminded of how fragile, how mortal the man is. The makeup on his face does little to disguise the exhaustion in his features, or the agony in his eyes. He is breaking, slowly but surely, falling apart with every passing day.

Steve knows the depth of Tony's loneliness, of his self-hate. Has born witness to the artificialness of the man's persona. If there is one thing that defines the genius one word that captures his essence, it is sadness. The man is a genius, a legend, an icon, but most of all he is a very sad man. And if there is one thought that has the power to tear Steve apart it is that his was the final betrayal, the last straw, that which irreparably broke Tony Stark.

After all, this is what he does best. He is a soldier at heart. He rages and charges and fights, but Tony? He builds and fixes and makes things better. Just like he had tried to do with the thing they had had, barely there, yet too strong for either of them to deny. Hidden by fear, uncertainty, and mistrust. Expressed with passing glances, shy smiles, gentle touches. Not any more. All of that is gone now. 

Steve had thrown caution to the wind, and now it is for him to deal with the consequences.

Or at least that is what he would like to think. The truth is, Rhodes was not wrong in thinking this truly was bigger that them. Everyone around his is suffering because of his mistakes. Said man more than most. The result James Rhodes's fall makes Steve sick to his stomach, seeing the man in a wheelchair had shown the immediate repercussions.

He thought it would be worth it, in the end, to see Bucky safe. But the man, as he is beginning to learn, is a mere shadow of who he once was. Steve tries with him, tries to get him to feel once more, but he knows a lost cause when he sees one. The truth is, there is little he can do for the other man. Not him. Not now.

The only one who seems to be able to get through to Bucky at all is Sam, surprisingly. They argue, and bicker, and drive everyone up the wall but they keep each other grounded when it matters. Steve can’t say he understands their relationship, and more than once has it made him feel useless and weak, but he appreciates it nonetheless. 

Clint also tries but the man is barely holding it together most days, trying in vain, to reach his family, to find a trace of Natasha, but the Black Widow is gone, lost to the world. A master at moving on and reinventing herself, he knows by now to be less worried about her, and more for anyone who tries to get in her way.

But years of rapport as a team-member had made her feel like a sister to him, shown him a side to her that few had witnessed, a softer, more human side. Now, there are times he feels only hatred for her and her uncanny ability to become whatever and whoever is needed at the time. Times when he thinks they are better off without her, and her coldness, her disloyalty to any cause, and the insincerity of her person.

If there is one thing Steve does not regret, a tiny, almost insignificant thing, buried under mountains of guilt and regret, it is the feeling that he was loyal to his beliefs, as misguided and warped as they had become. This is a minuscule thing, but is perhaps all that keeps him going.

\---


End file.
